


Chez Renard

by chantefable



Category: J’ai vu le loup le renard chanter (Traditional Song)
Genre: Existential Angst, Extra Treat, Gen, Nature, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 10:32:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14830604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chantefable/pseuds/chantefable
Summary: Provence. Ennui. Fugue.





	Chez Renard

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Quillori](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillori/gifts).



I had been about a month at the hostel, drunk on light and idleness, and a blessed _nothing_ occupied my mind. 

I was aware of the passage of time, but only in that distant, relaxed way that a man who has fallen asleep in the shade of a leafy tree might be aware of the tiny feet of an ant choosing to hasten across his bare skin on its way home, to the ant-hill; in other words, days melted into one another with buttery slowness and I was quite content to ignore everything as long as I got to breathe lungfuls of fragrant air, gaze into the distance which was hazy and shimmery from liquid warmth, and put hearty breakfasts in my stomach.

I strolled down the meandering, narrow streets, where the wind blew in gusts and kissed the brightly coloured doors and lime-white walls before taking a sharp turn skyward, to the top of the cathedral that glistened like a narrow knife's edge. I wandered into the fields that gradually changed their colour but never lost their charm, confident and sly like an old coquette; I ran my fingers through the tender blades of grass and blossoming flowers, and was hardly ever seen without a juicy stem between my teeth. At night, I clutched at my scratchy white sheets that smelled like sun and dust, and felt bruised petals between my fingers, my toes, my heartbeats.

People came and went, lured by the same hearty breakfasts and languid walks that had seduced me in the first place. Amateur scent lovers came to study perfumery, and wandered around artisanal boutiques in eager gaggles, flapping their cashmere shawls and hiding their sunscreen-slathered faces behind wide-brimmed hats. Art students hiked around in well-loved sneakers, clutching their chipped easels and treasured painting kits as they chased picturesque views with the keenness of hounds hunting game. Sitting in one of my sweet spots, I would make them out occasionally, huddled together on a steep slope or a curve in the road, drinking the beauty around them with hungry eyes and violently committing it to the pages of their battered sketchbooks. I avoided them all like the plague.

As the summer solstice approached and the days became particularly lush with humidity and heat, the landscape became transformed by the miracle of blooming lavender fields. The ramshackle hostel was awake and abuzz with activity at all hours, and our owners, Monsieur and Madame Goupil, seemed to be everywhere at once, yet nowhere to be found when a guest actually had a problem. The whole town was swollen with visitors now, and tourists roamed around like gadflies: in their right to be delighted by the gorgeous sights, but supremely annoying.

Increasingly vexed by the pinpricks of awareness of other human beings, a reluctant awareness that intruded upon my cherished _nothingness_ , I chose to take my meals alone and spoke to no one. Pouring myself a glass of ice-cold water from a sweating jar, I was dimly cognizant of the intense rosiness of my sun-kissed skin and the lemony yellow hue of my overgrown fingernails. My linen shirt had long stopped being white, and boasted faded berry stains in addition to numerous creases; my hair, I fancied, was quite a tangled mess, because I could not be bothered to brush it in absence of a mirror reminding me to do so. Indeed, the hostel had no mirrors at all, and the only glimpse of myself I had had over the past weeks had been in smudged reflections in stained shop windows, in muddy puddles and in handfuls of spring water I brought to my lips to drink in the middle of yet another wonderful walk.

The scent of lavender haunted me at all hours, and I saw its royal purple even when I closed my eyes at night. The stars peered into my window, large and luminous like pearls, and I watched them slowly roll across the deep velvet of the sky until sleep claimed me well past midnight.

I always slept alone.

My sky-bright idleness, soaked in silence and distilled in voluntary solitude and avoidance, demanded I protect it at all costs, and so I escaped the town crowds and began to take even longer walks, venturing further and further beyond the fields and into the whispering forest. 

On one of such vigorous walks, as I put more and more distance between myself and any semblance of human presence and began feeling unbearably light and radiant, carried by the gentleness of the breeze, I once again lost track of time or, indeed, space. As if in a slumber, I was focused on the pleasant burn in my muscles, the way the earthy browns shifted into vivid greens and somnolent shades of violet; smears of white and azure yielded to deeper, shadowy green and rich umber; the sound of vast openness became replaced by intense, reverberating sounds of _life_. Blinking back my waking dream, I discovered that, in my meditative state, I had rambled farther than ever before, and was now in an unfamiliar part of the nearby forest.

The same golden light sluiced through the thick branches heavy with ornate leaves and illuminated the abundant undergrowth, the ominously moving bushes and dark, viridian moss. Broken branches were scattered here and there, and various plants rose to swallow them as they reached for more of that rich, precious light. I shifted my weight from my heels to my tiptoes and was surprised by a group of butterflies taking flight from underneath my feet. A bird flapped its wings somewhere in the branches, too quick for me to spot its plumage, and a smooth, glittery snake slithered under a fallen tree a few paces ahead. 

Rocking back and forth as I took in the sight before me, I listened to the forest, alive with all the creatures incessantly busy within it, prey and predators alike. I realised that the strange, agitated feeling within me was surprise: I had been so calmed by the soothing sameness of my days, floating upon the cloud of exquisite _nothingness_ , that I had almost forgotten what it was like to be startled and perturbed. 

Yet the feeling that crept upon me in that moment was true surprise, itchy and uncomfortable. Somehow – although I cannot explain the foolishness – I was surprised to find the forest so wild, so haphazard and primeval. Why that was my reaction I cannot say; why wouldn't this forest be untended and unkempt to human eyes? Why wouldn't it be unfathomable and alien?

And yet, through some inconceivable dream logic, I realised that I had sought to find this place, that I had longed to be here all these long weeks. Looking at the dense tree mass ahead, I understood that I _almost_ recalled and recognised it. But in those deep crevasses of my mind that had lovingly kept its image, the forest had been very different: neat and tended to, cleared of stray branches, and fit for farming timber, pollarded trees and coppice everywhere for wattle and wicker. A medieval wood.

Inside my head, I heard the echoes of a distant song, and footfalls through the fern. I remembered – I _saw_ – a wolf, a fox, and a hare parade on their hind legs, looking regal in their embroidered clothing and jangling money purses tied to their belts. I _saw_ – I remembered them dance a farandole around a large bush, and as they spat cryptic rhymes and clapped their clawed paws, I was overcome by a sense of loss and understanding. 

I had fled here, to the sunny Provence, in a desperate bid to escape my sorrowful, futile pursuits, my work and obligations, my eternal _business_ ; my prestigious employment that was nothing but indentured service, my taxes and duties, and mandatory consumption of goods I never desired, like a lugubrious levy on life. I fled; I saw no point in being busy with things I never chose or wanted. Day and night, I strove to be idle with the single-mindedness of a mystic, an exalted monk. 

I had relinquished my bee-like labour, shared my conforming, appropriate appearance like a snake sheds its skin, and did nothing, thought nothing, was nothing, in a desperate attempt to restore some unknown part of myself that could be free and belong to me alone. 

And in this forest, insanely beautiful but immensely disappointing compared to the fantasy of a magical past I had hidden from myself, I was stabbed by the realisation that there had always been such manipulation, such abject oppression, and avarice in many guises. That my serfdom could not be judged as better or worse, merely different, just like the power of the crown, the church, and their corrupt and conniving bourgeois aides had merely transmutated through the alchemy of social and political evolution. 

Therefore I could not be saved by pleasant walks and lovely views, or choosing better masters, or becoming one myself. As the wolf, the fox and the hare completed the farandole and melted into each other in a fog-like embrace, I understood that whatever scraps of joy I would find in life could only be gained if I reached out a hand to others, and paid for my fragile hopes of happiness – not in gold, but in solitude. 

Inebriated by this unwanted knowledge, I turned around and made my way back to _Chez Renard_. 

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Occitan variant of the song: [Ai vist lo lop, lo rainard, la lebre](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX0tnJ-WZL8).


End file.
